Pacing a timed competition route
Climb too fast and the hard moves drain your glycolytic reserve. Climb too slowly and your forearms run out of oxygen while you hang on. Somewhere between the two is a pace that gets you to the top, and the clock decides how much of the rest time you can afford.
In plain words
A route with a time limit asks two questions at once: will my body last, and will the clock? Rushing feels efficient, but fast hard moves burn the reserve that runs out first. Going slow feels safe, but every extra second of gripping costs forearm oxygen. At the top level a lead route takes several minutes, and rests have to fit inside that time. The skill is choosing where to rest and for how long before you start, then checking the clock at the rests.
Memory hookSteady between rests, short at rests, check the clock at every rest.
Finding the pace
Two ways to fail
Bursts come so quickly that phosphocreatine can't recharge between them, so glycolysis takes over and runs out.
Every extra second on a hard hold drains forearm oxygen, because hard grips restrict blood flow.
See it: compare two strategies
Set difficulty to 8. Try 2 s per hold and save it as strategy A, then try 4–5 s per hold and compare. Then try 9 s per hold. Change the rests too.
Planning the clock
The measured route times below show that top-level lead routes take minutes. Before starting, split the time you have into climbing time and rest time.
rough holds × seconds per hold, plus planned rests.
long rests where the hold is good, short shakes where it isn't.
"by the second rest I should have at least half the time left."
Before the competition: the taper
A taper means doing less training in the run-up to a competition. A meta-analysis across sports found the best results from reducing training volume by 41–60 % over about two weeks, without changing intensity or how often you train. The studies were mostly in endurance sports, not climbing.
The evidence
Numbers from adult elite competitors.
- Measured In the 2012 World Championship lead final, the route took 220 s (SD 82) for men and 356 s (SD 93) for women. Arbulu et al. 2015: 16 ascents, 8 men and 8 women. Int J Perf Anal Sport 15(3):924–934, doi:10.1080/24748668.2015.11868841. Average hand contact per hold was 8.5 s (women) and 7.0 s (men), as reported by Winkler et al. 2022.
- Measured In 2018 World Cup and World Championship semi-finals and finals, attempts took 235 s (SD 68) for men and 261 s (SD 56) for women, with average hand contact per hold of 6.3 s (men) and 5.6 s (women). Winkler et al. 2022: 26 attempts per sex in those rounds (80 lead attempts in total). Front Sports Act Living 4:790336.
- Measured Tapering: training volume reduced by 41–60 % over about two weeks, with intensity and frequency unchanged, gave the largest performance gains. Bosquet et al. 2007: meta-analysis of 27 studies. Med Sci Sports Exerc 39(8):1358–1365.
- Model The too-fast and too-slow failures come from the route simulator, not from a study of pacing.
- Coaching practice Plan rest lengths and clock checkpoints before you start.
Model assumptions
The route simulator is described on The three energy systems of a climb. The route-time figures come from different years, rules and route-setting styles; read them as a sense of scale, not as a target for your own route.
Try it
Common mistakes
in the model, rushing fails on the glycolytic reserve before the forearm runs out.
on a timed route, decide rest lengths in advance and check the time at each rest.
save long rests for holds where the refill keeps paying.
the taper evidence points to doing less volume while keeping the intensity.